Mass Effect: Andromeda Trailer Shows New Worlds

Mass Effect: Andromeda [official site] is boldly going where no Mass Effect has gone before, taking BioWare’s sci-fi RPG series to a new galaxy, in the far future of the original trilogy’s far future setting. Because of the N7 designation held by Mass Effect protagonists, November 7th is to Mass Effect what May 4th is to Star Wars, and today brought a new cinematic trailer showing some giant monstrosities, a bland default player character who you’ll probably want to edit immediately, and some ominous voiceovers. Take a look.

I was hoping for a release date, so I’d have some actual news to report, but Spring 2017 is as much as we’ve been told for now. And it’s a shame that we’re going to have wait longer for actual in-game footage, though the end of this trailer does tell us when to expect that at least – December 1st at The Game Awards.

As well as starting a brand new story in a new time and place, Andromeda is going the open world route, though there’s no evidence of how that’ll work here. Instead, we learn that the protagonist (presumably) is a special boy (or lady, should you choose) and that there are all kinds of unpleasant things going on in the Andromeda system, including the presence of a baddie who appears to have a halo of flesh.

I’d thought Andromeda was a little bit like Star Trek Voyager, with the crew zapped across space and trying to find their way home, but they’re actually looking for a new home. So it’s a bit like real estate TV show A Place In The Sun, but in space – A Place In The Proximity Of An Entirely New Sun. Of course, this sun appears to be very close to mean aliens, doomy prophets and the kind of mysterious tech that makes me think there’ll either be another load of precursor robot monsters, or some kind of mystical hocus pocus. Whatever the case, someone is going to have to blow up the bad things, and the trailer is heavy on that kind of action and light on the character-building.